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gnicholas | karma 26310 | avg karma 2.91 · 2024-04-05 22:27:46

What makes you say the marginal cost of each student is $20k?

danielheath | karma 3720 | avg karma 3.28 · 2024-04-05 22:44:11

That number is preceded by the word “if”, right?

gnicholas | karma 26310 | avg karma 2.91 · 2024-04-05 22:48:36

It is not. I don't think it said "if" before, but it certainly doesn't say it now:

> When the marginal cost of each student is probably $20K

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lupire | karma 8318 | avg karma 1.26 · 2024-04-06 01:29:25

Seems reasonable, as that's about what K-12 costs at a public school.

rightbyte | karma 9157 | avg karma 1.83 · 2024-04-06 09:10:16

Uni has to be way cheaper than K-12? The teacher density is way lower in uni and TAs are not FTE.

gnicholas | karma 26310 | avg karma 2.91 · 2024-04-06 21:29:25

OTOH, you don't get room and board at a public school, and the facilities are much less complex (in terms of labs and other specialized buildings).

amluto | karma 19119 | avg karma 3.85 · 2024-04-06 14:11:46

Is the marginal cost even well defined?

A lot of the expensive universities operate near capacity, where capacity is limited by housing, zoning, lecture hall space, capacity of the departments, etc. They have costs that look marginal (housing, teaching, food) and costs that look fixed (administration, management, some IT expenses, libraries). But, due to the approximately fixed class sizes, this whole breakdown seems a bit fictional.

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